After being made redundant I found myself being three months behind on my mortgage. I had never previously heard about a hardship loan modification - it's something you don't hear about unless it happens to you!I believed niaively that I would get a job within 3 months well things didn't work out the way I wanted! It wasn't that I had buried my head in the sand or was ignoring the problem - it's that I thought it would get solved more quickly. I was spending more energy trying to find a job and chose to ignore the threat to the most important thing - the roof over my head. I realized almost too late when the mortgage was going to go three months in arrears - I wasn't able to find work and instinctively knew I was in trouble with keeping the house.

I had let things get out of hand for almost too long and it was recommended that I get some help as foreclosure proceedings were imminent. The sudden realization hit me. My first action after I realized the seriousness of the situation was to ask my folks for a loan even though things were also tough for them. I went to a foreclosure attorney but because I had no money left she didn't want to help - I mean what was in it for her - she had a business to run and I wasn't in a position to pay!

Unless you've been through this you have no idea of the pressure- you can't think straight - you can't seem to make the right decisions, you have your wife and children to feed as well. When you realize that you need help the hard thing to find out is where to get the right help. I went to Church and did some serious praying. Don't get me wrong I'm not very religious but this did help me see things a bit clearer. On the Monday I went to my local library and went to the reference section. The good thing about any library is that the internet and newspapers are free - so you can get good information.

When there I found out on the web about a hardship loan modification that was designed to prevent people like you and me from losing our homes. I found out that lenders and banks are often willing to discuss arrangement with you to stay in your home and avoid foreclosure as it also saves them from greater losses. I was surprised to learn that some loan insurance companies were refusing to pay banks that had foreclosed on customers without giving them a chance to come to an arrangement. This gave me some hope!

The facts are that once a property is foreclosed the return to the lender is usually only 30% of the outstanding balance. Having this background information gave me greater confidence to go the next step in saving our home.

Since I'm not very clued up about financial information and how it has to be presented this was potentially a major stumbling block - I needed a helping hand. As I said before I couldn't get an attorney to help me however I did find someone when at the library.